Tuscon's twisted troubadour of twang returns with his 2nd Alternative Tentacles record. If the Dead Milkmen met Bob Dylan and hallucinated in the desert outside of Tucson, "Halloween In America" would be the result!

This brand new album proves that Fish Karma's rusted razor wit is just as deadly as ever. He's been called everything from Neil Young's bastard brother to the most horrible thing you've ever seen in your life. His career in creative antagonism began at the University of Arizona where Fish worked with a student run comedy troupe. The stage bug infected him and, discovering that he could neither sing nor play an instrument, he decided to begin a life in music.
His concerts made him a cult figure. Byron Coley of The Village Voice says "Fish is a great entertainer. Live, he strums along at whatever tempo he wants & rants & raves the funniest observations this side of George Carlin." Fish Karma's punk rock sensibilities and rusted razor wit led him to work with Al Perry & The Cattle, Mojo Nixon and Jello Biafra who says "Fish's music is your basic FUGS-style electric grunge folk, and his lyrics feature some of the meanest put-downs of American consumer culture I've heard in years."

Fish is well known for his wry wit and humor, as well as an insatiable need to spit on all things conventional. He says "Part of my problem is that the first record I ever heard was "My Ding-A-Ling" by Chuck Berry. I have been struggling to overcome that disability ever since."

Halloween In America" is Fish Karma's latest twisted pop twang communique from the tract home wastelands of Tucson!

Available from Revolver,
iTunes, Amazon, Other, and eMusic now, as well as many other e-tailers. There is now a physical Disc-On-Demand available at that Amazon link as well as below!

"The Beowulf Alley Theatre [is a] great place to see a band, especially in the middle of the day. This gig took place just before noon, on a Sunday, as part of the Tucson Fringe Festival. The venue is very nice, and is set up for the theater. Great acoustics, comfy seats, and not a bad seat in the house. It looks like it holds about 75 people, and today, it was about half full.
I was surprised to see that the Love Generation, this morning attracted a wide range of people from punkers, to little kids in diapers, to hippie chicks, to little old ladies. Fun for the whole family; It was actually kind of funny watching Fish (Terry Owen) singing some of his rude and hilarious songs with his lyrics flashing the large screen in a PowerPoint presentation, while the little old lady in front of me watched with rapt attention.
Musically, the band can really play: sometimes heavy metal, sometimes country twang. Fish was standing center stage, reciting and ranting his lyrics, while dressed for business, wearing matching coat and pants. The songs are from the band's Halloween in America album and as a whole, they comprise a 'rock opera', which were popular in the early 1970s. Come to think of [it], the band's sound DOES make a lot of allusions to rock music from a bygone era. They're like a hyper-literate garage band, except instead of songs about cars and girls, they sing about existentialism angst, ennui, despair, and current events.
At today's show, the band embraced the fave audio-visual tool of the corporate world: the PowerPoint presentation, using it to good effect to help the audience understand the lyrical content (by projecting lyric sheets above Terry's head), and also to add a few visuals (mostly Terry's photos of abandoned storefronts, or other imagery that illustrated his lyrics). I hope that Terry noticed the irony in all of this: while at odds with much of consumer-culture (in his lyrics), he does make an exception for PowerPoint! Did I mention that Terry is also a great cartoonist? Hey Fish, next time you do a PowerPoint presentation, add some of your drawings!
On a corner of the side of the stage, local singer/songwriter Al Perry served as narrator. Reading from a script on a music stand, Al read a script that linked together all of the individual songs into a sort of patchwork story.
As a 'rock opera' (a very mid-60s, early 70s thing to do) the approach was pretty straight-forward: each song was separated by a narrative interlude by Al Perry. The lyrics to each song flashed behind Fish in a PowerPoint presentation. I got to thinking about how the 'operatic' qualities to this show could be enhanced even more: add a mime? Have sound effects (and thus turn the show into something of a radio play)? Have the band members speak some lines of dialogue, and thus 'act' out some of the script? The idea of a 'rock opera' is intriguing, and Terry has a natural theatrical bent. So who knows where Fish Karma & the Love Generation will take this, should they choose to continue with the rock opera format!
For the last song (a rousing version of Sugar, Sugar by the Archies), Terry wrapped himself in a 'Snuggie' and lounged on the stage like [a] Roman Emperor (with his 'Snuggie' as his toga) as the band cranked it up behind him. When the song ended, he was flat on his back, looking like Darby Crash (of the Germs) on the albm cover of The Decline and Fall of Western Civilization.
I'm not sure that this [is] what the little old ladies in the seats in front of me expected when they entered the theatre, but they stayed for the entire 90-minute concert, and applauded at the end. Pretty incredible feat for this band, to create politically edgy garage rock music that appeals to such a wide cross-section of people!"
- SLIT music fanzine